Take Another Look
Seeing the bad in the world and people isn’t difficult. It’s lazy.
CHIP GAINES, TV HOSTprescribed a corticosteroid, a strong
anti-inflammatory drug, as it can
sometimes help with nodular prurigo
after other treatments fail. But after
two weeks on the drug, Eva was back
in her doctor’s office, feeling worse.
Now, as the doctor examined her
patient, she detected something that
hadn’t been there before: a swollen
lymph node on Eva’s chest, near her
shoulder. Concerned, she ordered a new
chest X-ray. It showed multiple enlarged
lymph nodes. On a CT scan, the growths
looked suspiciously like cancer.
And indeed, a biopsy of several of
the nodes led to a clear diagnosis: Eva
had nodular sclerosis Hodgkin lym-
phoma, a cancer of the immune sys-
tem. This cancer is most common in
those aged age 15 to 35, but fewer than
three in 100,000 people develop it every
year. It’s almost impossible to diagnose
when the earliest symptoms not only
match a wide variety of diseases and
conditions, but are blamed solely on
the patient’s state of mind.
“The psychological explanations do
come when you find nothing,” says
Trellu. But even someone with a men-
tal health condition can have an
underlying disease causing itching,
she points out, which is why it’s
important to keep investigating. “You
wouldn’t want to miss lymphoma in a
psychiatric patient.”
Fortunately, Eva’s cancer was still at
an early stage. She started chemother-
apy; her itching and pain improved
dramatically after the first session. The
skin lesions began healing.
Eva finished chemo treatments in
October 2017 and currently sees her
oncologist every six months. She has
more energy, and she’s even back at
work. “I still sometimes have the sen-
sation of an ant crawling over my skin,
and it makes me want to scratch,” she
says, though she admits it’s probably
the same feeling everyone has from
time to time. But for her, it’s also a
reminder of the long and difficult
ordeal she went through. “I hope my
story can educate both health profes-
sionals and patients,” Eva adds.ON EVA’S CT SCAN,
MULTIPLE ENLARGED
LYMPH NODESLOOKED SUSPICIOUSLY
LIKE CANCER.
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